Psychosis, phenomenology, and culture: Welcoming the ‘black box’

Summary

Culture influences all aspects of psychosis, including its onset, manifestations, course, and outcome. Variations in psychosis across countries and populations, such as in phenomenology, incidence, course, and outcome, are partly explained by cultural factors. There is a lack of research on the phenomenology of psychosis across cultures. A global perspective is needed to understand psychotic phenomena and their relation to culture. Further attention to phenomenology and re-theorizing culture as a source of moral agency for mental health recovery is urgently needed.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract This chapter builds on an earlier critical review of literature (through 2011) concerning the relationships between culture and schizophrenia. It updates that review with new literature on the influences of culture on all aspects of psychosis (i.e. onset, manifestations, course, and outcome) and literature invoking culture as an explanation for variations in psychosis (i.e. in phenomenology, incidence, course, and outcome) across countries and populations. As an addition to the original review, this chapter also comments on the paucity of literature on the phenomenology of psychosis across cultures and the importance of taking a global perspective to build a complete view of psychotic phenomena and their relation to the cultures in which people live and grow up. It also argues that there is an urgent need for further attention to phenomenology, as well as a plea for re-theorizing the role of culture, at least in part, as a source of ‘moral agency’ that people can use to seek out mental health recovery in locally meaningful ways.